26.10.2025

Without a fault, that was what this duet of love was. Voice, perfect. Words, beautiful. Music, immaculate.

Then why did the song inspire such sadness?

Melancholy ran through the melody and his mind. In his life, there was no duet of love. In his life there was either a song of yearning and unslakeable thirst or a lamentation of grief. Out of all in the world, there was not one that would make the music with him, share the song.

These Indians, these Hindi speakers, what words of love they would sing. They would promise their life. They would promise their love the stars and the moon with her peerless radiance in the night sky. And his own promises of love? They had never let him fulfil them. Instead, them and their world had stood up against him, threatening to crush him if he expressed what was inside his heart.

But India knew this. He had known it himself. Still he had dared to love. He had had to love stealthily in a world full of hate. Dressed in black in the night, like he was a thief in mourning.

Difference does not find love.

Integrity and love do not hold hands.

For resolution there is no romance.

Desire does not dance.

The classic Hindi song and the classic Hindi film pursue one theme: love in and against a world of hate. This new generation with their inexperience and their betrayals mock the Hindi film and the Hindi songs. The traitors to love scoff at her, pursuing practicality, power and convention.

For those of the old world, for those full of love, loyalty and passion – even obsession – the Hindi love song is the template of ourselves. For our love, we can give our life. For our love, we can give the moon and the stars and the sun. What we cannot give is our honour, our promise. And that is what a world without honour asks for. But honour has been promised to the Mother Goddess. You can’t live without love but you can live without a love duet. It is poison. But we swallow it.